TKC MUST READ!!! KANSAS CITY TAX FIGHTERS FIGHT BACK AGAINST DEAD TREE MEDIA: WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS!!!



We've highlighted the important passages from this EPIC push back against newspaper name-calling. Checkit:

Letter to the KC Star Editorial Board

Wednesday morning, May 10th, you published a letter in “Letters To The Editor” from a Charles Ballew. In his letter, Mr. Ballew mentioned my name specifically and stated I and others “..seem relentlessly against progress and growth in Kansas City— the latest being the downtown convention hotel.“

We suggest you print a correction in your newspaper. Your facts are wrong. Mr. Ballew, the Mayor and others who spout this and other falsehoods need to understand the truth. Your publication is not doing itself any favors publishing false statements about me personally or our PAC, "CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT”. You continue to do so on a regular basis so we doubt this letter will ever see the light of day. CFRG does good work in the best interest of the KCMO taxpayers and will continue to do so. We are the GOOD GUYS!

We are not against building a downtown convention hotel and never have been. We are for solid, well funded, and researched growth and expansion. Growth which is in the best interest of the taxpayers in KCMO. What we are not for is “fly by the seats of your pants” growth our Mayor and his cronies continue to push. The backroom, last minute side bar deals which circumvent the taxpayers when it’s our money they’re spending.

We say build a Downtown Convention Hotel, just don’t take $167,000,000 in taxpayer funds to do so. If this is such a great deal for Kansas City, why aren’t there investors lined up to invest? Why do they have to rely on KCMO voters to foot the bill and possibly get stuck with another white elephant. What are they hiding?

Our referendum petition simply gives the voters the opportunity to vote yes or no. Do the voters want to spend their money on a downtown hotel? They can vote for or against spending on the hotel. Isn’t that democracy?

We ask, as you should have been doing all along, who are the “investors”? "Where is the financial “term sheet” you supposedly showed Troy Schulte and “selected city officials” back in December?" Troy stood up in front of the City Council and swore he had seen the sheet and it looked good to him. This was an attempt to circumvent the council and the taxpayers as the council was ready to review the entire deal and possibly pull the plug. Schulte’s comments stopped them short. They were told “meaningful progress had been made on the financing”. When some of the more astute members on the council asked later to see the term sheet, it wasn’t available for them, yet they were being asked to move the project forward with large sums of taxpayer money attached. There are way too many answered questions for this to be a good, legitimate deal for the taxpayers. Why was it rammed through in the final days of the previous city council? Because the current City Council would not have approved it or moved it forward without a lot more information.

You can tell Mr. Ballew we have hobbies, one of which is keeping and eye on how City Hall is spending the taxpayers money. If he thinks Kansas City’s growth trend is positive, check with the bonding agencies. Also, how many families are moving into Kansas City? These are the true measurers of success. You can’t measure success by all the taxpayer TIF’d and tax abated projects being developed in Kansas City.

Dan Coffey
Citizens for Responsible Government ( the GOOD GUYS)
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Comments

  1. The road to privatization requires public money

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  2. Because it is not a good deal!

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  3. They should print the lefty Star on pink paper.

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  4. just look across the state to StLouis. 20 years ago they [city] floated bonds etc to finance a downtown convention hotel, next to their convention megaplex. 10-12 years later they belly-upped in bankruptcy, defaulted on the bonds, and sold out at pennies on the dollar. I know, I had some of those bonds! Bad investment.....

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  5. Dan Coffey and the CFRG group are PRIME examples of democracy in action.

    They should be highly praised and held up as positive examples for the community.

    The Kansas City Star Editorial Board is a well-known, actually infamous, recidivist offender when it comes to committing habitual serial crimes against the KCMO electorate. Most of them are NOT residents of KCMO. They can currently be considered as temporary hires of the failing, nearly bankrupt McClatchy Company which sports a whopping debt-to-equity ratio of (-39)!! They're trying to sell off their KC real estate holdings before they cease daily publication. They don't pay their fair share of taxes, but always support raising the tax burden upon KCMO residents. Everyone on the editorial board is a Democrat and they exist in their own irrational echo chamber.

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  6. KC Star is a rag , very one sided , VERY MUCH LIBERAL. , Can't handle the truth and readership is tanking , that's what happens when you get a ride From the mayor to dry HUMPPING BOYZ ALL THE triggered DOUCHEBAG metrosexual TRANNY BITCHES ¡!

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  7. ^^^^ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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  8. ^^^^ Asleep again at the keyboard?

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  9. And I think that's the HUGE misconception about the people against this "deal". It's a great deal for the DEVELOPER not tax payers. All tax payers want is transparency and fairness. It's NOT fair that tax payers are REPEATEDLY asked to financially ensure the financial success of a private development. If Hyatt and Mike Burke want to invest THEIR PRIVATE money on the project then by all means write the checks. But half of the financing is coming from dollars that should belong to tax payers. Yet we have zero say in the whole thing. That's fair, right?

    Now S'lie says that the TIF dollars don't exist without the development. Which is true. But that's him using political double talk and technicalities to validate his irresponsibility and mis-use of tax payer dollars. Once the value of that land goes up with the development then those additional dollars SHOULD go to the tax payers. Just like if I add on to my house, thus driving up the value, then my property taxes go up.

    Fair is fair. They should have to pay their fair share and it's NOT our responsibility to ensure their financial success. Just think of all the MILLIONS of dollars the city would have if all these private developers paid their fair share? We probably wouldn't have needed the Mid-Continent library tax that passed in November nor the Go-Bond tax that passed in April. Among others.

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  10. If there was a demonstrable need for a new hotel...it would already be privately built.

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